Chain saws are heavy-duty devices for cutting wood, particularly trimming and removing trees as required to maintain a house or fell trees in lumbering. Chain saws are also used in the creation of works of art such as wood carvings and ice sculptures. While chain saws reduce the hard work of such tasks, they unfortunately require significant maintenance and repair. Chain saws are prone to clogged fuel lines, clogged air, fuel and oil filters, hard starting engines and under tensioned chains.
A chain saw functions by cutting material from a work piece, thus forming sawdust and chips, and hence its very use creates debris which tends to accumulate on various parts of the chain saw. Unfortunately, the debris created by the chain saw is one of the major causes of malfunction of the chain saw, particularly air, fuel and oil related problems.
Many chain saw users recognize that the dust, dirt and debris produced by the chain saw is a threat to trouble-free operation of the chain saw, and they carry a brush in their toolboxes which can be used to clean the caps on the gasoline tank and oil reservoir and the areas around the caps, before opening the caps. Such brushes are effective in preventing saw dust, chips and other debris from entering the gasoline tank or oil tank; however, unattached brushes tend to be unavailable. Such brushes tend to get lost or fall to the ground when the chain saw is being used on a scaffold or the like. Mounting a brush on the chain saw will not solve this problem as illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,745 to R. G. Woodbridge entitled Chain Saw Brush For Cleaning Saw Cuts. This patent discloses the combination of a chain saw and a brush mounted thereon, but the brush can only be used on surfaces other than that of the chain saw itself.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a brush for brushing a chain saw which will tend to be accessible when servicing the chain saw.
A common problem encountered by those who use chain saws is that the chain of the saw loosens during performance of a job and the chain must be tightened before the job is completed. The chain rides on the perimeter of a blade which is mounted on the frame of the saw confronting a sprocket for driving the chain, the blade extending outwardly from the sprocket. U.S. Pat. No. 2,765,821 to L. M. Strunk discloses a means to adjust the distance between the chain sprocket and the blade to adjust the tension on the chain. This 1956 patent discloses a chain saw blade tensioning device in which the blade of the saw has a slot extending therein on the longitudinal axis of the blade and confronting the chain sprocket, and a pair of threaded studs extend through the slot and are engaged by a pair of nuts that retain the blade in position relative to the sprocket. The chain may be tightened by loosening the nuts, moving the blade further away from the chain sprocket, and thereafter tightening the nuts. Similar saw tensioning devices that employ nuts to secure the blade of the saw at a proper distance from the chain sprocket are in use on most of the chain saws today . . . .
Accordingly, almost all chain saw users carry a tool in their tool boxes to release the nuts that hold the blade of the saw in order to adjust the tension on the chain and to tighten the nuts to retain the tension on the chain. Also, most chain saw users carry a screwdriver in their tool boxes to engage the many devices on a chain saw that are facilitated by a screwdriver, such as loosening caps on gasoline and oil ports. For convenience, a combination screwdriver and wrench has been provided for servicing chain saws, and this device is generally referred to as a “scrench.” It has a tube with sockets for nuts of different sizes at opposite ends, a shaft extending normally from the tube and a screwdriver blade disposed at the end of the shaft opposite the tube. The two sockets at opposite ends of the tube are designed to engage nuts of two different sizes that are found on chain saws, and the screwdriver blade is designed to engage air filter closures and gasoline and oil caps found on chain saws.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a tool for use with a chain saw that functions as a brush, a nut driver and a screw driver.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide a tool that is a combination of a wrench, a screwdriver and a brush in which the screwdriver function is facilitated by the wrench and the wrench and brush functions are facilitated by the screwdriver.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide a tool that is a combination of a wrench, a screwdriver and a brush in which the screwdriver function is not impaired by the wrench or brush, the wrench function is not impaired by the screwdriver or brush and the brush function is not impaired by the wrench or screwdriver.